Does this solve the biggest PARADOX in the Theory of the Bicameral mind?

foreign [Music] conscious humans and bicameral humans if your God happened to command you to watch this video Welcome tell your god thank you as well unless autonomon I hate Hanuman but if you're watching my videos there's a good chance that you're familiar with the theory of the bicameral mind I'll leave plenty of links to my previous videos in the description because there's a lot to cover with the theory like this and you can easily get sucked into a rabbit hole which might take you several years to emerge from if you're not careful but it's all there if you want to know about the theory um otherwise this discussion won't make any sense so this Theory sits in the realm of definitely possible but impossible to prove without a time machine but if you understand the historical evidence it does seem to make more sense um and especially if you supplement that with an understanding of modern human psychology and the psychology of schizophrenia and psychosis but there is one Paradox with the theory which Keener Minds have been able to identify I do encounter a lot of criticisms of the theory but I notice that a lot of these are based out of a misunderstanding of the theory but there is a crit criticism of the theory which is usually made by people who understand the theory perfectly well and it's this criticism that I want to address and attempt to resolve in this video because it does pose a very significant challenge for the theory and it's essentially related to the fact that Consciousness is a modern mentality possessed by modern individuals but it's not as if every group of humans on the planet evolved Consciousness or developed Consciousness at the same time we should expect it to emerge earlier in some groups relative to other groups depending on their level of civilization but there still are a lot of primitive hunter-gatherer groups that live on the planet today so if human mentality proceeds in the following way first we're unconscious or pre-conscious and then we're bicameral and then we're conscious so if that's how human mentality proceeds we should expect primitive hunter-gatherers to be closer to the pre-conscious slash bicameral side of the spectrum but it appears that many primitive peoples are in fact self-aware they do have egos and they do have possessed consciousness and this sort of punches a hole in the theory right it potentially does and when I saw this I had to kind of rack my brain to come up with possible explanations but a while ago someone left a comment on one of my bad camera online videos which was really fascinating and it points to a possible solution so I'll read that right now some years ago I gave a presentation to a group of colleagues who included psychologists Educators and Indigenous counselors on the subject of the bicameral mind and James's theories the Sykes asked a few polite questions and when the group dispersed an older Aboriginal counselor approached me thanked me for the discussion and revealed that he had experienced exactly the phenomenon I had described only when he left his remote Outback Community gained an education and worked with other groups of people did the voices recede although he still experienced them at times an irony is that he and I were part of a professional team who were tasked with addressing mental health issues in our with our clients including schizophrenia the indigenous gentleman and I both felt that we might be trying to cure a non-disease or or going about it in the wrong way now this is really interesting thank you Rowan for this comment I'm guessing from the word Outback that this indigenous man is from Australia although I could be wrong but it shows what could be happening when primitive societies come into contact with conscious people and that's that maybe when you come into contact with people with strong egos it begins to disrupt your bicameral mind because when you observe people who are independent and self-directing and their systems of organization and their mentality is imposed upon you it's possible that the brain will reorganize itself to become more ego directed rather than unconsciously directed by the voice of the Gods I should first explain some complexities that are involved with this Theory it's easy to dichotomize and think of the bicameral mind in in either or fashion so either you're conscious or you're bicameral but in reality people experience varying degrees of Consciousness and bicamerality even modern people show signs of the bicameral mentality in their dreams for instance so it's a matter of degree with respect how much this mentality presents itself in any given individual there are many people today who have very highly developed egos their egos are constantly in control of their psyches they are highly conscientious and they're usually very high performing because we live in a society that greatly values the ability to direct your own psyche but then you also have people whose egos aren't as strong and and Ros capable of subduing the unconscious people with schizophrenia are closer to the bicameral side of the spectrum but even they usually have egos it's just that during episodes of intense stress their egos are at risk of rather easily dissolving and you do get cases of people without egos at all who seem to be very catatonic but these seem to be relatively rare in the modern world since developing an ego is very normal and probably because of proximity to systems that encourage us to have egos such as our language and such as our culture so again it's not a matter of being either bicameral or conscious but the degree of Consciousness relative to bicameralism and when we talk about primitive people it does often didn't seem like we are closer to the bicameral side of the spectrum they do for instance very often speak about the gods being important forces of nature and in decision making they do very often have a very magical way of looking at the world which attributes much more significance to Supernatural occurrences Shamanism also involves individuals who seem to have egos that are more dissolvable and that gives them their ability to communicate with the gods and there are still shamanistic societies today so it seems like that itself is evidence of modern a modern bicameral mind people who are actively speaking to the gods and communicating with the Gods in order to make decisions when Carl Jung visited Africa he recorded his interactions with a primitive tribe who lived on the southern side of Mount elgon in Kenya he was particularly interested in their dreams but he was surprised to find that the tribesmen reported that they didn't have any dreams and that only the medicine man aka the shaman was capable of experiencing them but then he spoke with the medicine man and I'll just read what Jung wrote the medicine man then confessed to me that he no longer had dreams either they had the district commissioner instead since the English are in the country we have no dreams anymore he said the district commissioner knows everything about war and diseases and about where we have got to live this strange statement is based on the fact that dreams were formerly the Supreme political guide the voice of mungu God so this is something that seems very similar to that comment by Rowan there's a little bit of a discrepancy here in that the commands of the Gods in this situation don't come from hallucinations which occur during the waking state but instead through dreams but I've explained before that dreams are like the bicameral mind for modern people it's how we access the unconscious and access the autonomous complexes that exist in our psyche but I guess in the modern world there's a tendency for people to just dismiss their dreams or not to make major decisions based on what happens in their dreams but this medicine man is purporting that hearing the voice of God was formerly the primary means of making major decisions but that's no longer necessary since the English with their strong modern egos are capable of making making decisions for themselves and for these tribesmen so again it seems to show that if you can rely on someone else's ego to make decisions your ability to communicate with the gods seems to be diminished and maybe it's your mind observing conscious individuals that gives it the ability to assert its own autonomy another thing that I would like to emphasize and which has been my primary explanation for this criticism up to this point is that modern primitive hunter-gatherer groups are still modern human beings their minds have been evolving for thousands of years since the human species emerged so it wouldn't be too paradoxical for them to have to possess egos now especially if their language is very rich and their culture is oriented in the direction of possessing an ego a sufficiently evolved language I think could be enough to equip a person with a conscious mentality but it's also rather apparent that they don't rely on their egos too much to make decisions and the way that they speak about the gods and Supernatural Spirits could give you the impression that they still do experience The Voice voice of God so it does seem that they are closer to the bicameral side of that Spectrum although that doesn't mean that they don't have egos it just means that we can find examples of primitive people who seem to indicate that they are less conscious and less egoic than modern people living in Civilization another thing which Jung noted when he was studying these tribes is that they seem less capable of concentrated mental effort and they will get exhausted more quickly when they're asked questions repeatedly this seems to indicate a greater Reliance on Instinct and automatic processes which again indicates that they are less conscious at least in the volitional sense this is also why they seem to possess according to Jung way more physical strength and much more endurance and even Julie and Jane's notes this a few times that the extra mental effort needed for Consciousness seems to subtract from our physical capabilities an additional observation made by Jung which links his studies to the theory of the bicameral mind well actually I should preface this first one of the things that Jane says about the hallucinations of a bicameral man is that the hallucin Nations probably most often occurred whenever a person encountered a novel situation in which they couldn't simply rely on their instincts it's the decision stress of that situation which causes the hallucination and as Jung learned more about the people of Mount elgon he learned about their relationship with certain animals one such animal is the art of Arc in the original writing he calls them ant-eaters um but but in modern parlance anteaters refers to a specific animal that exists in South America and he was probably talking about aardvarks which also eat ants and termites but anyways the art of Arc is a very elusive animal and it's rarely seen and it's so rarely seen that when the tribesmen encountered one they were very astonished because to them it was just this incredibly unlikely event and the novelty of the situation seemed to cause the tribesmen to explain the encounter as having Supernatural Origins they instantly believe that some sort of malevolent Spirit must have sent the art of Arc and notice how that has similarities to what's described by Jane because a novel situation seems to invoke or seemingly invoke uh the supernatural by the way the art of Arc in that situation was sacrificed in order to prevent the malevolent Spirit from doing whatever malevolent activity it had planned but this also raises the question of whether such people only appear conscious to us because we're projecting our mentality upon them that when they talk about the God speaking to them we just assume that that's kind of like a metaphor or something but perhaps from their perspective they're still experiencing the gods because they definitely talk like that's the case like they're still in communion with these spirits and carry out their orders so it could be our projecting of our own mentality which mistakenly causes us to believe that they possess a higher degree of self-awareness than they actually do so does this solve the biggest flaw in the theory of the bicameral mind well it definitely is an important piece of evidence which might provide a solution but like I stated at the start of this video it's one of those theories that's difficult to prove conclusively either way but I still think that contemplating this potential solution leads to an interesting discussion wouldn't you agree well anyways that's it from me have a good day and may good luck always come your way [Music] thank you [Music]

Channel: Nexus Void

Views: 1,135

Keywords: Bicameral Mind, Julian Jaynes, Civilization

Id: RlEQnTD0h0M

Length: 12min 4sec (724 seconds)

Published: Thu May 25 2023